All-american Tops List Of Winners Of County Bouquet, Boot Awards

November 7, 1985|By Bill Bond, Lake County Columnist

Some bouquets and boots for October happenings:

-- Bouquet to Amy Ray, the 17-year-old blue-ribbon swimmer at Mount Dora High School who was named an All-American by the National Interscholastic Swimming Coaches Association. The award was based on her state record performance in the 100-yard butterfly race at last year's Class AAA meet in Fort Lauderdale.

-- Bouquet to nine Mount Dora city maintenance workers who helped local law enforcement officers capture a convenience store robbery amid shooting suspect. The workers helped police surround an area where the suspect was hiding. One of the employees located the suspect.

-- Bouquet to the Clermont Chamber of Commerce which is spurring renovation projects to spruce up the downtown business district.

-- Bouquet to Lake County Commissioners for their offer to donate 3 acres of road-front property to the Sunrise Workshop for the handicapped. The workshop had been leasing property from Leesburg but was told this year the city would not renew the agreement.

-- Bouquet to Jack Currie, principal at Minneola Elementary School, who helped devise a child development course for parents and others in the South Lake community. The course will help teach parents what they can do at home to help their children in school.

-- Now, a Double Boot for mulish behavior by Lake County Circuit Judge Ernest Aulls Jr., who went out of his way recently to block a car parked in a space reserved for circuit judges. Aulls made the errant motorist come to his office and profusely apologize for her poor judgment before he moved his vehicle and freed the woman's car. Interestingly, Aulls chose not to park in at least two adjoining parking places also reserved for judges. That'll teach her, judge.

-- Bouquet to Sun Banks of Leesburg, for sponsoring a free performance by the Florida Symphony Orchestra at Donnelly Park in Mount Dora last month.

-- Bouquet to local law enforcement agencies and hospitals for helping Halloween trick or treaters have a safe All-Saints night. The hospitals X- rayed candy and the Lake County Sheriff's Office provided 8,000 bags to elementary school children to collect their goodies.

-- Boot to the tacky TV campaign ads that came out recently for Florida U.S. Sen. Paula Hawkins. They feature missing children advocate John Walsh, whose son, Adam, was abducted from a South Florida shopping center four years ago and later found decapitated. The ads exploit the whole missing children's movement.

-- Bouquet to area organizers of a Memorial Day 1986 powerboat regatta. They persuaded the American Powerboat Association to bring their exciting races to the eastern shore of Lake Eustis after a site in Tavares was scrapped. The race will be an economic and recreational boon for Lake County. -- Bouquet to the Leesburg Downtown Merchants Association that put up $4,000 to help the city improve the miserable traffic flow downtown.

-- Bouquet to Leesburg High School football Yellowjackets for derailing ninth-ranked Citrus High School in a recent upset in front of a hometown crowd.

-- And finally, a bouquet to the compassionate Orlando policeman at Orlando International Airport who kept assuring a distraught Lake County newspaper columnist that nobody had stolen his vintage 1976 Chevy from the airport parking lot. After a few anxiety-filled minutes of riding with the officer through a sea of parked cars, we saw the car. I deserved a blushing red anvil award for failing to note the section where I had parked the car.